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Post by ripper on Dec 13, 2014 18:30:39 GMT
Dem, I know the anguish of giving things away and living to regret it. When I got married, I put away my collection of books and comics as we needed the room quite badly. For years I have lived with the thought that I put them in the loft. However, a few weeks ago I ventured up there and couldn't find any of them, which led me to the realisation that I must have given them away and forgot about it over the decades. I had several hundred comics: lots of Warlord, Action, Whizzer and Chips, Corr!, Marvels, DCs. Probably around a hundred books, including a complete set of Movie Treasury series with all those lovely colour stills. Maybe they are still lurking in a dark corner of our loft, but I have the feeling that they are all gone.
The girls' picture library comics I remember seeing all those years ago sound similar to the ones you bought, Dem, but I am not sure if they were medicals or possibly school stories.
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Post by pulphack on Dec 15, 2014 5:59:08 GMT
Ah, so Egmont and DC Thompson have finally realised how much money Carlton made from plundering the Fleetway vaults (and as they don't have to pay royalties that's an extra 10% of the cover price into the pocket of the publisher!). I have to brave the big Asda at Leyton Mills later today, so will try and check out more thoroughly (before Mrs PH pulls me and the trolley away).
Those romance reprints are great - wait til you get to the one where one of the Beatle lookalikes loses his memory (he's snarky, so obviously Lennon) and foreswears rock'n'roll for nursing romance. The other volume Prion published, which was a library with stories based on pop songs, is also a cracker - there's a story involving the accidental purchase and hiding of fifty grand pianos that would have made a great Leslie Phillips film (with James Roberston Justice yelling at him for buying them in the first place)...
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Post by ripper on Dec 15, 2014 8:22:43 GMT
Hi Pulphack, please let us know how you get along at Asda. I read on a comics blog that some "best of " annuals are exclusive to Sainsbury's but I don't know if that is accurate. Our small Sainsbury's is, sadly, an annuals-free zone, so I should be interested to hear what Asda have, as we have a fairly large branch not too far away.
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Post by dem on Dec 15, 2014 10:42:55 GMT
Sainsbury's watch. Latest additions, Whitechapel branch. Roy Of The Rovers and Bunty. They are very slim. The Best Of 70's Girls Comics is a mere 72 pages. Includes comic strips, three short stories - At The Midnight Hour, Friends Of Alison (originally Misty Annual, 1979), Holly Takes The Plunge - fashion tips, horoscope, a full colour Osmonds poster and How to Make ... "a necklace out of wall-paper strips." £3.99, but then you're paying for quality. |
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Post by ripper on Dec 15, 2014 15:28:47 GMT
Dem, do you know if the "best of" books contain selections from past Christmas annuals or selections from the weekly comics?
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Post by dem on Dec 15, 2014 16:03:11 GMT
Dem, do you know if the "best of" books contain selections from past Christmas annuals or selections from the weekly comics? Hard to tell as I've only the above to go on. Strange thing is, the Best 70's Girls Comics has 'Egmont: £7.99' printed on the back, a red sticker screaming £3.99 on the front, and the check-out charged me £2.50, so the excitement starts with a game of guess the price. I'd imagine the Roy Of The Rovers Annual 2014 must be reprints because I flicked through it and he still has both legs. |
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Post by pulphack on Dec 15, 2014 16:58:35 GMT
So basically you can set your own price, then? These supermarket proce wars are getting silly when they start competing with themselves...
Anyway, Asda watch: it's bloody busy, even for a Monday afternoon, but I suspect that the Sainsburys exclusivity is not just a rumour, as there were very few annuals for such a big store, and they were all tie-ins with no DCT or Egmont retro stuff. Mrs Rip won't have to detour to the book stand, I'm afraid.
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Post by ripper on Dec 15, 2014 21:52:37 GMT
I wonder if the price lowering is an indication that Sainsbury's want to move these books by Christmas? Shame that these books don't seem to be more widely available, but now that Pulphack has confirmed them not being in his Asda, I will give Mrs. R a list of what to look out for when she goes to Birmingham next week :-).
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Post by dem on Dec 16, 2014 16:32:27 GMT
I read on a comics blog that some "best of " annuals are exclusive to Sainsbury's but I don't know if that is accurate. Why they should make them exclusive to one retailer is a mystery to me, but Egmont have previous for this. Back in 2009, they published four one-off "souvenir specials" - Battle, Buster, Misty and Roy Of The Rovers, and these were only available in branches of W. H. Smiths. For those traditionalists who believe a thread named 'Bring Back Scorer!' should actually concern itself with, if not football, then some team sporting activity, the Best of the 70's Girls Comics annual includes Minnie from Mars' jolly hockey sticks outing, Crocodile, Crocodile, which I learn from comicminx's rather lovely Jinty blog, was first published in the Jinty annual for 1976. |
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Post by ripper on Dec 18, 2014 9:13:20 GMT
Dem, that's an intriguing description for the best of girls' comics story. I assume that Minnie is an alien girl in a school, but what is the Crocodile Crocodile all about? It sounds as if this one may have to join my wants list.
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Post by dem on Dec 18, 2014 9:40:58 GMT
Dem, that's an intriguing description for the best of girls' comics story. I assume that Minnie is an alien girl in a school, but what is the Crocodile Crocodile all about? It sounds as if this one may have to join my wants list. OK, I think I'd best utilise our fab new spoiler plug-in for this; {Crocodile, Crocodile: Click here if you want to know more}
The school crocodile has gone missing, and Millie's teacher is in a flap. Ever helpful Millie, who is indeed an alien, uses her magic powers to conjure a replacement in sensible school uniform. But - oh dear! The bogus croc will insist on joining in the hockey match! Hilarity ensues, etc. Be warned, the strip only runs to two pages, and that would be my one criticism of the annual as a whole. Almost everything is too short, as though the publisher has already decided their target audience has an attention span of approximately 5 secs. That said, it's a lovely book. Just a little anorexic. |
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Post by ripper on Dec 18, 2014 14:33:28 GMT
Great stuff, Dem, and many thanks. This is now definitely on my wants list.
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Post by dem on Dec 18, 2014 19:51:47 GMT
A quick comparison guide. Girls 70's Comics comes in at a spartan 74 pages including covers, welcome enough if little more than a glorified tweet. So I dug out four sample annuals from back in the day - Scorcher (1978), Action, (1979), Roy Of The Rovers (1979), Shivers & Shake (1982) - and each of them run to 128.
Only had time for a cursory flick through the new Roy Of The Rovers, but have further business in Sainsburys tomorrow (scouring pads X 5; £1.25) so will check the page count if they've not sold out.
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Post by ripper on Dec 19, 2014 9:07:39 GMT
The annuals I remember from my childhood would also have been around the 128 page mark, Dem. I did have a few ones with page counts which may have been closer to those "Best of" being sold in Sainsbury's but they weren't annuals; rather, they were one-offs to cash in on then current TV programmes and dating circa 1967. I had Custer of the West, Garrison's Gorillas (The Dirty Dozen for the small screen) and Mission: Impossible. There was also an Avengers with Steed and Emma Peel, which I didn't get. I can't remember if these were sold at Christmas. They were the same size as normal annuals only much slimmer. They may have been called "Television Story Books" or something similar.
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Post by ripper on Dec 26, 2014 15:50:22 GMT
Mrs. R braved the Boxing Day sales today and returned with the Best of Whizzer & Chips, Roy of the Rovers, Battle, and 70s Girls' Comics. She told me that Sainsbury's were selling them for £2.00 each, so they must have been reduced in their sale. There were also a few others such as Best of Bunty and Beano, but sadly no Warlord.
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